I let out a heavy sigh. For a moment there, I hadn’t been sure how that was going to play out. I was glad we’d managed to avoid another altercation. That said, I couldn’t believe how much Koharu had grown overnight; it seemed she really did aspire to be like Anzu someday, which was probably why she’d made such an effort to keep her cool no matter how Haneda tried to get a rise out of her. I had to respect the level of determination it must have taken to decide to rebuild herself as a person from the ground up. Koharu had just earned herself some major props in my book.
Several hours had passed since that kerfuffle at lunch, and I was carving through dense undergrowth on a seldom-traveled dirt path at night, with only my pocket flashlight to light the way. These mountain trails were surprisingly loud at night—maybe even louder than the shrieking afternoon cicadas. A plethora of different insects vied to be heard over each other, and the constant crowing of nightjars rang all through the forest.
“Ugh, this sucks…”
I’d made sure to cover myself from head to toe with bug spray before leaving the house, but I’d already gotten at least three mosquito bites. It had been a critical error on my part not to wear long sleeves. I would have loved to walk along the railroad tracks again, where there was no annoying underbrush to worry about, but unfortunately I couldn’t take any more chances after getting that warning from Ms. H the other day. So, unmarked trails and bug bites it was.
Eventually, after a long and hard-fought battle with Mother Nature, I finally arrived at the wooden stairway leading to the Urashima Tunnel. As I descended, I noticed white lamplight coming from right in front of the tunnel. Figuring it must be Anzu, I picked up the pace—and sure enough, it was. She was crouched, clutching her flashlight tightly with both hands as she used it to illuminate the ground directly in front of her. She didn’t seem to have noticed me yet.
“Hey, looks like you beat me here this time,” I called out to her as I reached the bottom of the stairs. She shot up to her feet like she’d seen a ghost and shone her flashlight at me. Thankfully, I managed to shield my eyes before going blind.
“You’re late!” she shouted.
I checked my cell phone. It was 8 p.m. “Aren’t I right on time, though?”
“You’re supposed to be five minutes early! Everyone knows that!”
“Oh, right. Says the girl who was more than thirty minutes late last time.”
“Not even remotely the same thing! That was during the daytime! You can’t leave an innocent young girl all by herself out here at night! What if I’d been gobbled up by a wild animal, and they found my bones licked clean the next morning and couldn’t even identify me?!”
“Pretty sure that’s never gonna happen. This isn’t the African savanna, last I checked. Besides, if you really didn’t want to come out here at night, why didn’t we do this tomorrow morning?”
“I already told you! Because I want to fit in as much investigating this weekend as we possibly can!”
Right. Today was Friday, July 12th. We had the day off on Saturday, and Monday was the school’s founding day, so we had that off as well. In other words, we were looking at a three-day weekend—which was highly valuable to us, considering that our biggest obstacle when it came to venturing deeper into the Urashima Tunnel was plain old time itself. Even the briefest, most bare-bones investigation of its inner reaches would cost an exorbitant amount of time, so having three days in a row that we could afford to lose was a rare and valuable asset. Getting started tonight as opposed to tomorrow morning gave us yet another twelve hours to use, so Anzu definitely had a point. Even with that extra time, though, we’d only be able to stay inside the tunnel for a whopping total of two minutes. I’d even gotten permission from my father to spend the night at a friend’s house all weekend long, all for two measly minutes.
“We don’t have time to stand around here talking either. You still remember everything we talked about in our prep meeting, I take it? Then let’s get going.” Anzu grabbed me by the hand and dragged me along with her as we took our first steps into the Urashima Tunnel’s gaping maw.
The warmish draft inside the tunnel tickled the back of my neck. You’d have thought it would be nice and cool in there so late at night, but something about the dark enclosed passage and its stifling humidity made it difficult to breathe. I wanted to get this done ASAP so we could head back to the fresh air outside. Our main goal for the day was to try to figure out how long the Urashima Tunnel might be. The plan was to run as fast as we possibly could, as far as we possibly could, as soon as we passed through the boundary, then come running straight back.
“So basically,” Anzu began, “if we can only afford to be in the tunnel for a total of two minutes, that means we should be able to make it about three hundred meters in if we’re going at a full sprint. Given our current elevation and the circumference of the hill the tunnel runs directly into, there shouldn’t even be three hundred meters of underground for us to go through. Assuming all goes well, we should be able to make it out to the other side.”
“Ooh, good analysis. I’m impressed!”
“By what?”
“I dunno. You just sound like you know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Oh, pfft,” she snickered. “So you just like the sound of my voice, then. Got it.”
Man… She probably thinks I’m really dumb, huh?
“Anyway, I was doing some independent research in the library the other day,” she went on. “I tried to find any possible leads I could about the Urashima Tunnel, but there was nothing of value on the web or in any of the books on urban legends I checked. So all we can really do is feel it out for ourselves and investigate based on our own personal experiences.”
“Damn, Hanashiro. You’re really putting in the work on this… Uh, but could you let go of my hand now? You’re squeezing pretty tight.”
Anzu stopped dead in her tracks and instantly relinquished her death grip on my hand, which she’d maintained ever since she dragged me into the tunnel. If it were just a nice, tender hand hold, maybe I wouldn’t have said anything (even though I’d have been losing my mind on the inside), but she had been digging her nails deep into my skin, so I had no choice but to point it out.